Thierry Neuville is back into up into the points after Saturday morning’s loop of Rally Japan, but title rival Ott Tänak is doing all he can by continuing to lead the rally.
Neuville headed into the 13th and final round of the season 25 points clear of his team-mate, but as Tänak built up a 20.9-second advantage over Toyota’s Elfyn Evans, Neuville’s world unravelled around him with a turbo-related problem dropping him to 15th.
As he retired on Friday after crashing into a tree, Andreas Mikkelsen was due to run first on the road on Saturday but incurred a time penalty to allow his championship-chasing team-mate the optimum spot in the order.
The Norwegian admitted his motivation wasn’t the highest as his target for the weekend now is to score good points from Super Sunday and the powerstage tomorrow.
However his sacrifice, copping a 40s penalty for checking into the day’s first time control four minutes late, was a worthwhile one for his team, as Neuville is now on course to score championship points from the first part of the weekend.
Neuville had a gap of just under 1m45s to make up to the top 10 at the start of Saturday but made light work of closing that down and closing to the verge of the points-paying places. A stage win on SS11 helped and after notional times were applied due to the cancelation of SS12, he moved up into ninth spot.
“Let’s see where we’re going to end up tonight,” Neuville said. “That’s the only thing we can do.”
Neuville needs to score six championship points in Japan to guarantee himself a maiden world title, but Tänak’s also doing his bit by staying on course for full points after Saturday’s classification.
The Estonian has given up time to Evans on Saturday morning though – his lead reducing by 4.6s to 16.3s at the halfway stage.
However neither Evans nor Tänak were able to complete the last stage of the loop which was cancelled due to a safety issue.
Adrien Fourmaux ended Friday just 0.1s ahead of home hero Takamoto Katsuta but outpaced his rival by 5.1s on the day’s first stage. However Katsuta hit back on SS11, jumping ahead of Fourmaux and onto the provisional podium by 0.4s.
But a spin on the final stage of the morning cost Katsuta over 10s, and he lost position to both Fourmaux and team-mate Sébastien Ogier.
“I hit something on the inside and I was looking on the display, but we are here so all OK,” Katsuta said.
“We expected better grip but I was surprised it snapped completely.”
Katsuta had climbed up to third but a mistake on SS12 set him back
Toyota really needs at least one of Katsuta or Ogier to move ahead of Fourmaux to keep its manufacturers’ championship hopes alive. But while Katsuta has to 2.3s behind Ogier, Ogier is now just 3.4s behind Fourmaux.
“The most important thing is me or Taka in front of Adrien and to still have some hope into Sunday,” Ogier said.
Fourmaux added: “When it’s really twisty like that I struggle a bit with the front, I have not found enough front with the car – then I lose confidence and I lose brakes, so it’s not easy.
“But it’s still a fight and the rally is long, so we do our best.”
Grégoire Munster almost claimed the first stage win of his WRC career on SS10, beaten only by Elfyn Evans, and showed strong pace throughout the three-stage loop, but remains a slightly lonely sixth overall on the leaderboard.
He and M-Sport team-mate Fourmaux carried some hard tires as part of their package, which Munster felt was a benefit.
Nikolay Gryazin is directly behind him as the leader in the WRC2 category. Sami Pajari is second, and therefore on track to secure the 2024 title.
